New Eyes: Praying for Ones that REALLY SEE!

A few weeks ago when Bethany and I were walking across the garbage filled field that we always pass through on our way to work, I stumbled across a dead cat. It caught me completely off guard. Bethany asked if I was going to start crying, but I managed to hold back the tears. Now some of you ((those who obviously are NOT cat lovers)) are probably thinking, “Jenny, really…it’s only a cat; there are hundreds more and after all it’s only an animal- no emotions, no feelings, and no human spirit.” Well what I have to tell you is it wasn’t so much that it was cat that was so upsetting, but the whole dead part. The death is what got me. I guess though I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Death isn’t exactly what you would call a foreign concept here in Kenya.
With the cycles of poverty, hunger, and AIDS, the funeral processions come weekly; every Thursday and Friday morning brings the sound of drums and tambourines as the bodies are carried from the mortuary, through the town, and to the burial sites. Even more, garbage, muck, and mess litter the streets and fields. Homeless street boys roam the town with disintegrating clothes, scavenging among the trash searching for something to sustain them for the day. These same street kids grow up to be the street men and women, who are penniless, homeless, dirty, sick, and hungry, with nothing to do all day but sit and wait. They’ve tried to get an education and have gone looking for work, but without the money to pay for school fees, education is impossible. And without an education, a job is unfathomable ((even with an education, employment is hard to come by)). So they sit and wait, and it looks as if they are waiting for death. With the lack of environmental awareness coupled with the drought Kenya has experienced of late, even the vegetation seems to be withering away. No green grass or smell of fresh air; luscious trees and blooming flowers are few and far between. On top of all of this, there is a heaviness felt- a burdened load. I think we could label it as the powers and principalities at work. That presence you can’t quite put your finger on, but you feel it day-in and day-out, as real as anything you’ve ever felt. I could go on with descriptions from all my senses- sights, smells, tastes, and sounds. But the point is they’ve processed the same observation. Through my eyes- the selfish, prideful, limited, flakey, greedy, uncompassionate, unloving, and deceitful eyes that I have- seeing that dead cat “crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s” on the question that had been toiling around in my mind: “Is Kenya dying? Where is life here in Kisumu?” The sufferings, the diseases, the burials, the reports, the surrounding environment, the history records, the newscasts, the frame of mind people live in, the corrupted government, and the deception people live with all kept my mind busy with, “Lord where are you? What are you doing here in Kenya? Can you hear the cries of your people?” And the answer I got was, “Jenny, I’m right here all around!”
At first I didn’t really get it, and I kept praying. I knew He was here, and I knew he was doing something, but I was still overwhelmed with the fatalism Kenya seemed to be caught in. But slowly I started to see glimpses here and there, and I have started to have eyes that really see. God really has been here all along. He was in the smile of the old woman who was missing her teeth; He was in the enthusiastic greetings and thumbs up of the kids; He was in every heartache planting a seed of restoration; He was in the little moments of laughter the suffering people enjoyed; He was in my embraces with the sick; He was comforting me every time Cathis ran up with arms wide open for a hug; He was in the grass and trees pushing through the garbage; He was in the little baby who realized mzungu’s weren’t dangerous; He was in the hope he restores in people through organizations like LCW; He was in the prayer of the street boy George during Sunday school; He is in Chris’ crazy prayers over our food every night; He is in the friendships He orchestrated with everyone in the office; He was in the starving woman scavenging for vegetables yet still welcoming us in her home with prayer and thanksgiving; He was the only foundation holding up the crumbling house; He really was EVERYWHERE!
And I started to have new eyes. Where I had looked with my eyes and could only see hopelessness, dejection, and death, God was seeing something entirely different. It is exactly at this moment of fatalism and desperation that God sees His greatest opportunity for intersection. He sees the seeds He rooted from the beginning of time, being watered and nurtured to fruition. He sees the glorious harvest to come. He sees his Kenyan children gathered around him, and he knows why his son was given as a ransom for all.
I think when God looks down and sees suffering, when he looks down and sees the epitome of his creation- the ones he made in his image- hurting themselves and hurting each other, he weeps. He sees the wounds, and it hurts him more deeply than we could ever imagine. But instead of only seeing destruction, He sees redemption. Where we throw up our hands in disgust and helplessness, he loves more deeply and gets his hands dirtier, holding the brokenness in his outstretched arms. Instead of seeing all the pieces, He sees the redeemed whole.
I recently found myself reading in Habakkuk, and I couldn’t help but notice some similarities. In chapter one, Habakkuk makes this plea,
“Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and conflict abounds.”
He continues to have dialogue with God about these things that he is witnessing. He can’t understand why God is allowing them. God replies with an interesting plan to rectify. Habakkuk can’t understand why or how God is going to use the people he is planning to use, nor can he really see God’s goodness through it all. But Habakkuk ends by saying this,
“Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”
I find myself here in Kenya, and I was looking through eyes like those that Habakkuk were first looking through. Every morning on my way to work, I am greeted by injustice. All my senses take in destruction and violence; strife and conflict are abounding. But like Habakkuk who went into dialogue with God, I have started to have new eyes. Eyes that even though sometimes I can only see the withering trees of the field and the empty stomachs of the kids I meet, I rejoice because I know that God sees something more glorious. I continue to pray for new eyes; I know it is only through a daily re-visioning that I will truly be able to see. And as I prepare to return to the states, I pray that my vision only becomes clearer. I invite you to join me in this prayer, praying that we will really have eyes that see.

HoMa BaY!!!

I finally got to go back to Homa Bay last weekend, and for lack of a better word, the trip was AMAZING! It started out with lots of laughs as Bethany and I attempted to squeeze under one mosquito net. We slept on mattresses on the floor of Julie’s house, and we only had one mosquito net and nothing to hang it from. So we got innovative and positioned a fan, a computer chair, a piece of luggage, and two other chairs around our mattresses; we then fastened the corners of the net to whatever would hold it and stretched it across our mattresses. If you can imagine the type of forts kids build with chairs and sheets in the living room that leave only enough room to crawl through, then you would see what we slept under. The net only covered a sliver of my bed, and Bethany’s mattress was a bit higher than mine, so I was completely enclosed. I felt like I was slipping in a coffin or something, with a wedding veil over my head as the net was draped on my face most of the night. I didn’t necessarily get the best sleep, especial because every two minutes Bethany was asking, “hey are you asleep yet?” but we got some good laughs out of it. It was a fun time we won’t soon be forgetting.
It was Fellowship there on Saturday, so the day was very full. Julie brought in a couple of nurses to do HIV testing, and all of the guardians were tested. There were about 40 in number and less than 10 tested positive. In a weird sort of way, that number is a miracle. The testing went on in Julie’s house, and while she took charge of that process, she left the kids in our hands- Bethany and mine. We were supposed to organize games and get things going, but it started out a little awkward. Robert had us take profile pictures of all the kids, and they definitely were NOT interested in looking happy for our snap shots. We then brought out a couple of mini-footballs ((it was all we had)), and I attempted to get a game going. Unfortunately most of the kids couldn’t and didn’t speak English, so mostly I just got blank stares. Ordinarily I think I would have just given up, but for some unknown reason an idea came to mind and we pushed through. I went and got a sheet and had Bethany hold one end. We put the balls in the middle and started shaking it like a parachute. This got the kids interested, and some of them came over to join us. Once they knew we were safe and weren’t quite as alien as they thought, a couple of the older girls came over and started playing volleyball with the football, and I got to join in with them. So we had about 8 of the 30 or so kids playing at this point. It still wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but at least some of them were having fun, and I was getting to interact. After about 30 minutes of the footballs, they got old and everyone went back to sit down under the tree. Bethany started taking down their names, so I just started taking more pictures. I was beginning to think that all was lost on the whole “let’s have fun playing games today,” but then like always, God blew my mind. Who comes walking up to me but Purity, the one girl I met last time I was there!!! She came up, greeted me excitedly, and though last time she hardly said two words to me ((me thinking she couldn’t really speak English)) we carried on a whole conversation. Her English is impeccable. She asked to take a picture with me, and then she asked how to use the camera. I showed her and that is all it took. Apparently Purity is somewhat the ring leader when it comes to all the older girls in the program, and once she approved of me, I had an “in” with the rest of the group. I think we spent the next hour taking photos together with her and the rest of the girls, and they, in turn, got all the little ones interested too. Peter then ordered all of them to come together to sing; Purity invited me along as well. I didn’t really know any of the songs we were singing, but everyone thought it was funny that I was trying to sing along. Then came the dreaded moment where I had to lead two songs. Yeah, that was really interesting because remember they don’t speak or understand much English. So I picked two songs that had hand motions, and they followed along. The guardians really found humor in this, and there were smiles all over. It was A LOT of fun, but worship leader is definitely NOT my calling. The sun was really shining, so it was time for another break. Purity was talking with me some more, and we decided it would be fun to play some games. I taught them one- red light, green light- and then they taught me one with a ball- similar to a random rendition of dodge ball. Then we combined two of our games- tag and duck, duck, goose- and everyone joined in. By this time, most of the testing was finished, and all the guardians were outside watching. The joy, the smiles, and the laughter echoing throughout was a glorious occasion. Julie said she hasn’t heard them laugh like that in a really long time. Praise be to God because that was my prayer! To finish up the day, we ate lunch (rice and tea) and distributed the maize. I was sad to see the day come to an end, but it was getting late; the families had a far way to walk, and we had to get back to Kisumu before the rains came. We said our goodbyes, and the girls taught me goodbye in Luo, which is “oritti.” Peter, Robert, Bethany, a guardian from Kisumu ((don’t know how he ended up in Homa Bay)), and I loaded up in the truck and headed for home. The ride home was great fun. We took turns teaching each other worship songs some in English and some in Kiswahili. The roads were really bumpy, so we sounded like chipmunks, but it was a joyful noise nonetheless. We stopped for a bite to eat, and as a gift, the Kisumu guardian bought our meal. He was probably the only one there who REALLY couldn’t afford it, but he wanted to do something for us. Talk about sacrificial giving; I can’t get over it.
Well that is Homa Bay in a nutshell ((or maybe too many details for you; it all depends on how you look at it I guess)). At first, I am tempted to say that God showed up in a big way while I was there. But then if I say that, it looks as if God wasn’t there in the first place, which is overwhelmingly NOT true. He was ALWAYS there in a BIG way, and I think maybe this weekend I was ready to show up as well. Like Jacob said when he woke up from his dream in Genesis 28:16, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” Praise God that He is ALWAYS bigger than anyone or anything I could ever be, and He is always overwhelmingly present. Please pray for the people at Homa Bay; pray for the guardians who tested positive, pray for Purity as she continues in school, and pray for LCW to continue to show up where God is at work. Amen.